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Sociolinguistics from the Periphery "presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users."

English is a language at the centre of research into language contact, because its global spread has resulted in contact with an enormous variety of different languages worldwide, leading to the creation of many new varieties of English, including second language varieties, and also pidgins and creoles. This book takes an original look at what happens when speakers of these different varieties interact with one another. Using her own rich fieldwork data from diverse international and South African contexts, Meierkord proposes an innovative approach to how Englishes merge and blend in such interactions, creating further new forms of English and further changes to the language. Through skilful analyses and descriptions, the book provides fascinating insights into where and who the users of English as a lingua franca are and what English then looks like at the levels of phonetics, morphosyntax, the lexicon and discourse.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. From English as a lingua franca to interactions across Englishes
3. Interactions across Englishes and contact phenomena
4. The interactions-across-Englishes model
5. Intranational interactions across Englishes in the outer circle
6. Local choices in South Africa
7. International interactions across Englishes – trends and developments
8. Linguistic choices in global IaEs
9. Conclusion and outlook.